Ellesmere Canal is the name of the area were the canal joins the river Mersey; by the mid-1790s it was known as Ellesmere Port. Docks and warehouses were built to facilitate this.
Between 1830 and the 1840s facilities were improved by the engineer Thomas Telford and others. In 1846 the Ellesmere Canal was amalgamated with the Shropshire Union Canal. In 1892 a new wharf was built to handle traffic on the Manchester Ship Canal.
In 1921 the docks were leased to the Manchester Ship Canal, and this led to the decline of Ellesmere Port.
The site is now the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port (formerly known as the Boat Museum).
In 2007, as part of a revival of some industries, ports and shipbuilding in Britain, Ellesmere Port docks were re-opened.
South Pier Road
Ellesmere Port
Cheshire
CH65 4FW
Designed by Thomas Telford, Ellesmere Port was the largest Inland Waterway dock complex in the UK. Just across the River Mersey from Liverpool, goods were moved from ocean going ships onto narrow boats and barges so they could move relatively swiftly along the canal network.
The docks were still working right up until the 1950s.
Now a conservation area with 19 Grade II listed buildings, you can still walk around the locks, docks and warehouses and visit our forge, stables and workers’ cottages.
Set aside from the rest of the docks, Porters Row is a passionately recreated picture of domestic life through the ages here in Ellesmere Port.
Originally built in 1833, the four cottages of Porters Row were over the years home to: shipwrights, blacksmiths, railway workers and, of course, porters and their families.
Today the cottages are real-life homes from the 1830s, 1900s, 1930s and 1950s.
This is where the canal company’s ironwork used to be made.
Walking the seven-acre site takes you through a dynamic landscape of Victorian listed buildings, docks, locks, stables, historic boats, cottages and canal basins.
Ellesmere Port's docks played an important role in the North West's development into an industrial powerhouse.
The Island Warehouse was built in 1871 as a store for grain.
Contains the mighty steam driven pumping engines that once supplied the power for hydraulic cranes and capstans throughout the dock at Ellesmere Port.
The Yarwood steam engine, which used to power the weaver packet boat Davenham carrying soda ash from Winnington Works to the ICI chemical company, is on display.
This entry and photos complied from the National Waterways Museum website, with thanks.
